She continued: "I thought she would let go but she started to panic as her hands got caught in the barrier. Everything happened really quickly, in a matter of seconds."

She said her friend's legs were hanging down and her body appeared "folded".

The inquest heard how Ms Gilmore ran upstairs to her flat to dial 999, meanwhile a neighbour tried to save her life by lifting her body up to release pressure on her neck, an inquest has heard.

At around 7.25pm on August 14, 2016, James Spitale said he heard someone on the phone sounding "incredibly distressed", then saw a woman hanging about 3ft from the ground at the entrance to the car park of Ruth Bagnall Court, a block of flats in Coleridge Road.

In a statement, he said there was blood coming from the woman's mouth, adding: "My immediate thought was to grab her and lift her up.

"I hoped it would release the pressure on her neck and allow her to breathe." When emergency services arrived they told him it was too late, he said.

Heidi Chalkley

A post-mortem examination gave Ms Chalkley's cause of death as multiple injuries, noting fractures to her ribs, spine, arms and jawbone.

It recorded that she had no alcohol or drugs in her system.

In a statement, Ms Chalkley's family said she had hundreds of friends, "everyone who ever met her warmed to her magnetism" and without her "this world is a much colder place".